2024

Hindutva, Pythagoras and the Zero
The BJP’s attacks on reason and critical thinking, on scientific temper, are an integral part of its assault on the Indian nation. Article 51 A (h) of the Constitution demands as a part of fundamental duties that citizens ‘develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform’. In October 2015, more than 100 leading scientists of the country felt compelled to point out that ‘ . . . what we are witnessing instead, is the active (…)

Reviewed by KS Subramanian
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Looking Back with Delight: A Memoir by Hari Singh
Solicitor and Notary Public, England and Wales (Academy of Business Studies, New Delhi)
pp 320 Price Rs. 890 $ 20.99
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This is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary personality who is solicitor and notary public in the UK and the Wales. The book tells his life experience in India, his land of birth and the UK his land of professional experience as a civil servant, legal luminary and (…)

STATEMENT OF SHRI JAIRAM RAMESH, GENERAL SECRETARY (COMMUNICATIONS), INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
January 10, 2024
Last month, the Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson, Smt. Sonia Gandhi and the Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Shri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury received an invitation to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya to be held on January 22nd, 2024.
Lord (…)

Communist Party of India
January 10, 2024
Dear Sir,
We are in receipt of your Letter No. H. 11019/3/2023-Leg.II (HLC) Dated 1st of January, 2024 asking for the views of my party, the Communist Party of India, on the issue of holding simultaneous elections.
The Communist Party of India does not approve of or endorse holding simultaneous elections and the complex issues involved in coming to this viewpoint are examined in detail in the enclosure to this letter. (…)

* Returning Magsaysay award & US degrees over US role in war on Gaza | Sandeep Pandey
* India and the World: Loud claims, little ground support | Apratim Mukarji
* Katwaroo Death Case, 1876 | A K Biswas
* Reviewing the experience of Italy in the 1970s | Toni Negri
* Sewage Workers Public Hearing Dec 28, 2023, New Delhi
* Gene editing has arrived | Merlin Crossley

Letter to the Readers, January 6, 2024
As the year 2023 wound to a close a strange incident flashed India on to front-pages of world media. A jet plane operated by a Romanian airlines with over 300 Indian passengers on board had flown out of Dubai and on way to Nicaragua was detained by French authorities during technical halt in France on suspicion of Human trafficking. This flight came under the French scanner since it was just days after a new french law with restrictions on immigration (…)

When I received the Magsaysay Award in 2002, a little controversy was created due to my decision to participate in a protest outside United States embassy in Manila against the impending attack on Iraq, immediately a day after the award ceremony in which the award was handed over by the Phillippines President. The then Chairperson of Magsaysay Foundation had tried to dissuade me from participating in the protest on the pretext that it’ll harm the reputation of the foundation. My contention (…)

Of late, Narendra Modi’s loud declarations and slogans are failing to match the ground realities. One can easily point out this inadequacy in the case of three specific instances in the sphere of foreign policy. As in all other sectors of governance, foreign policy is no longer the domain of foreign office diplomats and experts but is solely determined by the Prime Minister himself. The concerned Minister S. Jaishankar has proved himself to be a faithful associate whose main job now is to (…)

The Constitution Bench judgment of the Supreme Court substantially upholding the highly controversial decision of the Central Government to withdraw Special Status granted to erstwhile J&K by virtue of Article 370 of the Constitution, and downgrading its status by sundering it and converting it into Union Territories has grave implications for federalism, constitutionalism and indeed democracy.
There is a difference between constitution and constitutionalism. Every country has its own (…)

“I am just an ordinary political worker. Intellectuals are those who talk of something which is beyond them.” Were the words of Chandra Shekhar when he was asked whether he was an intellectual in politics during his 7 month tenure as Prime Minister of India. These lines very well reflected this man’s political ethos. In spite of the paradoxical streams in his political practice, this socialist from a farmer’s family in Ibrahimpatti village (Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, India) never lost his basic (…)